Last year Gil started as a Senior Consultant at Numlix. Today he works together with our clients to improve their FP&A processes by listening (to their needs), acting (in the tools) and delivering (a connected planning service).
Therefore it is high time we take a look at his career in consultancy, his job at Numlix and his every day work responsibilities. Read his full story below.
Numlix
Introduce yourself and what you do at Numlix…
I am Gil Noël, Senior Consultant at Numlix. Overall, my job is to help finance departments improve their FP&A process. Together with the team I look at what our clients struggle with within FP&A, what analyses they want to do and if there are certain financial planning aspects they can improve. All of this we realize by giving our clients the right set of tools (e.g. Anaplan or Power BI) and by investigating inefficiencies in their way of working to find potential solutions. More concretely, this means that I’m involved in the pre-sales process, the process analysis, the actual implementation and the delivery of these projects.
Why did you chose to work for Numlix?
For 7 years, I mainly worked for multinationals. The larger the company the more structured and efficient these companies work. As a consequence, I became more and more specialized in my role and was primarily occupied with my day-to-day tasks.
That’s why I wanted to join Numlix – here I have a wider range of responsibilities: working on projects, doing sales, being involved in recruiting and pitching potential ideas for marketing (like our speedcase concept😊) and so on.
What did you do before your job at Numlix?
Prior to Numlix I first worked as an IT-consultant for a year and then worked for Deloitte Consulting as a Senior Financial Consultant for six years. At Deloitte I had the opportunity to work on various finance projects and travel abroad for some clients. Here I was able to learn a lot about Anaplan and gain FP&A experience.
Afterwards, I joined a start-up company in Gent, and there I realized that working at a growing company was something I really liked (entrepreneurship, the direct informal way of working,…) but the sector in which they operated was less interesting to me. That’s when I decided to look for a start-up company that works with the latest finance tools – so hello Numlix!
Job (at Numlix)
What would you recommend to people who are doubting about a job as (a Senior) Consultant?
In general, I would recommend a job as consultant when you don’t like repetition in your job and when you are not a 100% sure in which direction you want to go. As a consultant you need to love the variety of working with new clients, new projects and new tools. For me that is something I very much enjoy.
More specifically, I would recommend working at Numlix if you like to help making our company more productive and more efficient by giving ideas and trying things out. Because the nice thing about a smaller company is that you have the opportunity to see what works (and what doesn’t). It is something that is impossible in larger company.
Can you describe your job in a few sentences?
My job has in fact 3 main parts:
- First, I need to listen – I need to learn how the client is working. Try to understand why they are working in a certain way and if it is not clear to me then that is probably a sign that something can be improved. Most companies work in a certain way because they are i) used to it ii) or because they have technical limitations. When implementing a new tool it is important to see whether these process steps are still needed or not.
- Secondly, I need to act – Once it is clear to me how the client is currently operating and what they want in the future I can start drawing out how I can design everything in our tool and implement this.
- Lastly, I need to deliver or educate – I need to learn how the client works with these tools and help them make the change of working with Excel to working with Anaplan in a connected manner.
What are the main benefits of your job at Numlix?
I would say: the variation, the human contact and the flexibility. For example, the fact that I come into contact with many different people:
- I get to know different customers;
- come across different people in finance;
- meet people from the IT department
- and make connections at Anaplan and Power BI.
What are the main disadvantages of your job at Numlix?
We are a small growing company so it can sometimes be a bit of a trial-and-error business. That is not a disadvantage, that is a fact and you have to be able to deal with it.
Personal
When I’m not working you can probably see me:
I’m a wine-enthusiast and currently doing a 3 year sommelier course. Thus in my spare time I try to enjoy a good meal and some good wine to learn from. 😉
Next to that I enjoy playing tennis, going for a walk and seeing a football game of Club Bruges.
Last but not least, what is your favourit song from our Numlix Spotify list?
As a consultant, you are often on the road so I would choose the perfect singalong from our Numlix Spotify: The proclaimers – I’m Gonna Be (500 miles).
